A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

PLM Think Tank – July Top 5

PLM Think Tank – July Top 5
Oleg
Oleg
29 July, 2012 | 3 min for reading

Usually, we expect some relaxation during summer time. Even we are still in end of July, this summer already provided lots of events, news and surprises.  Last week was dominated by news about financial activities of Dassault Systems and PTC. Week before was marked by Autodesk acquiring SocialCam for 60 million dollars. I can see lots of activity and innovation happen in engineering and manufacturing software. One of these innovations is introduction of modern browser techniques to the space of CAD and Viewer collaborations. Companies like Sunglass.io and GrabCAD announced their viewing capabilities available. I will continue to monitor the industry from “beyond PLM” viewpoint and share this news with you. Now, let me move to the traditional top 5 stories.

What is the future of PLM databases?

Database technology is a fundamental part of everything in enterprise software. However, after 25 years I can see some changes demanded. The complexity of product lifecycle problems brings the need of new concepts in data modeling and data management. One of the main questions – how to break the boundary of a single database? This is a key question, in my view. It will solve the problem of logical scalability and provide a platform for future information discovery.

Why Engineers don’t like company private social networks?

In my view, Facebook IPO put some cold water on some ‘social heads’. I think, PLM companies are missing some points in the space of social networking for enterprise. Here is my list of suspects – complicated user experience created by social PLM pioneers, anti-social engineering nature, engineer’s focus on “cool stuff” and ignorance of corporate oriented tools.

Co-browsing and future of CAD design collaboration

Collaboration in design is endless topic for innovation. I think the idea of collaborative browsing can “hold the water”. How many times you worked with shared screen on your computer? I did it many times. To have multiple engineers working on the same design can be an interesting option in your future CAD application in the browser.

“Alte-Zachen” PLM and new business models

In my previous life, ‘Alte Zachen’ person was taking old stuff away. I never knew what happens to this stuff after. The same about “second hand” PLM software. What will be the value of re-selling and buying existing licenses? I can some interesting work for lawyers to be done in this space. The main personage of “Pretty Woman” movie was buying companies having financial troubles and sell them apart for a significant profit. Will future PLM innovators buy existing PLM alte zachen for their future profit? A good question to ask… Just my thoughts.

PLM Dress Code Factoids

The dress code of PLM events is different from CAD and consumer events. Few people in PLM industry are still dreaming about how to follow ERP success. PLM companies and event organizers are dreaming about how to bring more executives to their events. They are key players in PLM strategic decision making. Dress code is part of the agenda to make PLM event comfortable for execs. I guess CIOs and other corporate execs feel wrong sitting next to engineers in blue jeans. I also believe some country and location specifics can be considered too. I rarely see suits and ties during events in Israel and California. At the same time, it looks quite appropriate in Germany and some other places in Europe.

Best, Oleg

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
4 April, 2013

Native Apps vs. HTML5 enabled web user experience? This is a dilemma for many developers these days.  People are spending...

26 May, 2011

In the old days, the focus of manufacturing companies was mostly about how to produce stuff. Most of the products...

16 April, 2013

Face it, even cloud is trending and growing fast, on enterprise premise systems are representing a major part of engineering...

2 August, 2018

Innovation is usually one of the top goals on the way PLM projects are sold to manufacturing and industrial companies.CIMdata...

25 March, 2015

I’m in Warwick today getting prepared for Develop3D Live conference, which will be tomorrow. The full conference agenda is here....

3 June, 2009

Short note: I see many BPM vendors are running to provide Business Process Management solution on cloud / SaaS.  What...

9 July, 2014

Navigate back into histories of CAD and PLM companies. You can find significant involvement of large aerospace, automotive and industrial...

15 October, 2017

My favorite weekend reading was The scale of tech winners by Benedict Evans (). I recommend you to read and...

10 March, 2013

I’m sure you are familiar with the term DIY (do it yourself). While the term is not PLM specific, I’m...

Blogroll

To the top